Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker is a slow and languid film. Each frame is rendered with such care and mastery that it could pass as a painting. It’s visually stunning and richly symbolic!
The genre is science fiction but in its most subtle form. The setting of the film takes place in and around a mysterious area called the Zone. Our titular Stalker is a guide to people wanting passage into this heavily guarded area. Inside the Zone, it is said, there is a room that will grant the innermost wish of one who enters. The potential of this room has great allure for Stalker’s two charges for this trip, Professor and Writer.
The Zone itself is another character at play in the story. It is alive; Stalker speaks of it as a thing with desires and intelligence, a thing to respect and fear. Tarkovsky’s use of colour amplifies the alien quality of the Zone. The film begins and ends in sepia tones; the first use of colour is our first glimpse at the Zone.
It is no majestic flyover, no metamorphosed alien landscape, the first glimpse of the Zone is mundane. It is a lush green space, overwhelmed with vegetation with bits of rust and debris sprinkled among the bushes. It is a ditch by the side of a railroad track, yet it is mysterious and dangerous.
This is part of Tarkovsky’s magic. He draws the unreal to the surface in his languid shots. He shoots in flooded ruins, everything has a thick patina, and nothing has the unreal gloss of perfection except the luminous fog. With his meticulous use of industrial ruins and abandoned facilities, Tarkovsky achieves both a profound execution of a dystopic and desperate world outside the Zone and a silent, otherworld desolation within!
The setting is intricate and just as much a character as the three men who enter the Zone. Their dialogue is often equally dense and intricate. With great precision they discuss human desire, the meaning and philosophy of art, and morality. It is a film of desire and faith. The path to the hidden place within the Zone is indirect.
At one point they stand before it yet crossing the grassy meadow to reach and enter would spell their doom. This is a parallel for the room’s ability to grant innermost wishes but not outright requests.
The Zone has influence over the minds and bodies of those who pass through it. It is an expression of both the unknown and also a reflection of the human soul. Through their journey towards the room, each man is changed, Stalker questions his faith, Writer his motives, and the Professor his judgement. These doubts build until the very last step before the threshold of the room that could grant their innermost wishes.
His film, literally drips and oozes with the thematic use of water. Artifacts submerged in water, water obscuring, water revealing.
This theme carries across his body work, but in Stalker seems particularly strong. All of the interior scenes and most of the exterior is profoundly damp. Water rushes, impedes, clings, obscures and reveals.
Tarkovsky was a master at building a mood. He’s self-confessed to having no ideology behind his work, beyond constructing a kind of poetry to convey emotion rather than a moral story that can be reasoned out cognitively.
Although one of my favourites it is not a film for everyone. Stalker is not an easy film; it’s subtitled three-hours long, and slow! Yet, each passing frame furthers the construction of a sleepy thriller that explores faith and desire. It is a tricky journey, one that takes a bit of courage and attention to the symbolism of each passing scene, but one that will leave the traveler changed.
Give it a watch, come back and let me know what you think of the ending! I’d love to hear your interpretations of the story and themes!
all photos are from Tarkovsky's Stalker!